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Bullying in Schools

Bullying and harassment have far reaching consequences for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender youth across the United States. In 2013,85% of LGBT students reported being verbally harassed at school. Of the students who chose to report these incidents of bullying, over 60% said that school staff did nothing in response.1

Students who experience bullying because of their sexual orientation or gender expression are three times as likely to miss school, have lower grade-point averages, and have high higher levels of depression and lower levels of self-esteem.

Despite these staggering statistics, school climate is changing and becoming more welcoming for LGBT students thanks to comprehensive anti-bullying policies. GLSEN supports effective anti-bullying policies that explicitly list sexual orientation and gender identity/expression as specific characteristics within the text of the policy. Research shows that students at schools with such comprehensive policies are less likely to hear negative comments about sexual orientations or gender identities and are more likely to have school staff intervene when hearing homophobic remarks.

What does this look like?

For the purposes of policy making, it is important to include clear definitions of bullying and harassment. We understand that the realities of bullying cannot be easily sumarized or categorized in to one defintion. We do not intend to limit the scope of bullying through this definition, but have crafted this language for explicit use in policy.

Bullying means written, verbal, or physical conduct that adversely affects the ability of one or more students to participate in or benefit from the school’s educational program or activities by placing the student (or students) in reasonable fear of physical harm. This includes, but is not limited to, conduct that is based on a student’s actual or perceived race, color, national origin, sex, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other distinguishing characteristics that may be defined by the state or state educational agency. This also includes association with a person or group with one or more of the abovementioned characteristics, whether actual or perceived.

Safe Schools Improvement Act (SSIA) in Congress

The Safe Schools Improvement Act is a federal bill that would ensure all public K-12 schools have anti-bullying policies in place that include sexual orientation and gender identity or expression.

SSIA was reintroduced in the Senate by Sens. Bob Casey (D-PA) and Mark Kirk (R-IL) on January 29, 2015. It was also reintroduced in the House of Representatives on June 25, 2015, by Rep. Linda Sanchez (D-CA). The bill enjoys strong bipartisan support in both chambers.

GLSEN is proud to lead the National Safe Schools Partnership, a broad coalition of education, civil rights, disability, religious and youth development organizations who work to support this critical legislation. This bipartisan bill is nearing record support in both the Senate and House.

State and District Level Policies

Currently, 18 states and Washington, D.C. have LGBT-inclusive anti-bullying policies that protect students on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. The latest available data indicated that while 70% of school districts have anti-bullying policies, only 10% have policies that include sexual orientation and gender identity/expression.2